Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Guest (Male): You are now listening to an inspirational message from Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church where Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr. is the pastor. Please join the service in progress.

Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr.: I like that part where he says, "I'm nothing without you." That's the truth for all of us. We're nothing without God. That's why we want Him to breathe on us and live in us so that we can become the people that He wants us to be. It's not a destination where you finally arrive; you're always becoming. You're always becoming the person that God wants you to be. There is no day that you finally get there and you say, "I've finally arrived. That's it. No more growing, no more need, I'm there." Well, that's what we're going to talk about today, how some people think that and they find themselves deceived.

Let's pray. Father, thank You today for loving us. Thank You for blessing us. Thank You for the truth of who You are. Thank You for the glory of Your love and the blessing of this day and for the privilege that we have to be a part of this worship opportunity. Thank You for the songs, the scriptures, the prayers. Thank You for Your people. Thank You for the Word of God. As we open it together now, we pray for divine guidance, that You would speak to us and through us. That You would bless the words that are in our mouth and the meditations that are on our heart, that it may be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. We ask it now in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. I want to turn this morning if you will to the New Testament book of Galatians, chapter six. Galatians is right after first and second Corinthians. After you've passed first Corinthians and second Corinthians, then you'll find the book of Galatians. It's written by the Apostle Paul, and it's the sixth chapter that I want to look at. I want to read verses seven through 10 in your hearing.

The Word of God reads, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith." This is the Word of God for the people of God.

Amen. I want to talk this morning about the law of sowing and reaping. The law. Maybe I ought to modify that and say the irrefutable law, the unchangeable law, the undeniable law of sowing and reaping. I think that's a positive thing, but it also is a word of warning. We started last time talking about warning for the new year, that we have to be careful. Here is another one of those reasons we need to be careful. The good news is there can be benefits in it, but you've got to be careful.

I was intrigued the other day when NASA announced that they were bringing the astronauts, all of the astronauts, back to Earth from the Space Station because one of the men had encountered a medical emergency. They never revealed what the medical emergency was, but they brought all of the astronauts back to the Earth. It's the first time that that has ever happened. There have been a lot of firsts with NASA and space. I remember back in the sixties when America launched a rocket and it orbited the Earth for the first time. Then when they launched another rocket and it went up and then they kicked in the rocket boosters and it released itself and it went and orbited the moon.

Now, I don't know much about math and numbers and all of that, but I know that that spaceship when it was launched was traveling 25,000 miles per hour once it was released from its rocket to go to the moon's orbit. The moon spins around at about 2,300 miles per hour. A rocket being launched that's running 25,000 miles to find an orbit of 2,300. They did it because of the preciseness and the unchangeableness of the law. There's a law of gravity. The mathematicians figured it out. They knew exactly where they needed to go. They knew exactly where those connections needed to be made in order for that rocket to get into the moon's orbit and then the moon's gravity would pull it and it would go around.

Why? Because there is a law, an irrefutable, unchangeable law in nature. When God designed this world, He put some unchangeable, undeniable, irrefutable laws in place that no one or nothing can change. Just as there are physical laws in the universe, there are also moral laws in the universe. What he says here, he gives us the principle of that law when he says, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." It's a law. It's a moral, spiritual principle.

But the warning here is, "Be not deceived." Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. You cannot make a fool out of God. You'd better understand that there are a whole lot of people who are deceived. That word "deceived" is a strange word. It's a word which means to be led astray. So the warning is, do not be led astray. Hello somebody. Hello America. Hello brothers and sisters. Hello church. We can be deceived.

What I came to tell you, I'm going to come close to you, is that it's not that you necessarily need someone else to deceive you. You have a deceptive mechanism that lives on the inside. Because we are incarcerated in flesh. How many know as long as you're incarcerated in flesh, there are temptations that will come? Don't deceive yourself. Don't fool yourself and think that somehow you have risen above the irrefutable law of God. You just may not have been put in the right situation. On the right day, under the right circumstances, you might be saying, "Lord have mercy. Help me Jesus."

Now, I know I have a Christian community in here this morning. Yes, I do. You know I'm telling the truth. Paul here is writing this letter to the Galatians. Galatia was a region in Asia Minor that the Apostle had gone to. It's a whole region, Galatia, and he established a church there. Once he established a church there and moved on with his other missionary enterprise, word comes to Paul that the church at Galatia had moved off of the mark of its Christian focus. Some other judaizers had come in and had begun to undermine the teaching of the Apostle Paul.

Some were even saying that Paul wasn't even a real apostle because he hadn't been one of those that walked around with Jesus, so he really didn't know what he was talking about. Paul writes this letter, and in the first two chapters, he is defending his apostleship. "I am an apostle," he's saying. He says that he doesn't need any proof, that the people don't need any proof because they themselves have heard the word from him. Because they have been converted, they are all of the proof that he needs.

Then in the second two chapters, chapters three and four, he writes about the Christian life. He writes about salvation, and he tells those Galatians, he raises the question, "Who has bewitched you? Who has tricked you to make you think that there is another God, that you can be saved some other kind of way?" If you were saved spiritually, then you need to learn how to live spiritually. In the last two chapters here, five and six, he writes about how to live the Christian life. He brings up this law by saying if you sow to the Spirit, you'll reap the Spirit.

He talks about in chapter five the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, goodness, meekness, temperance, self-control. He said against those there is no law. So if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap a strong spiritual outcome. But he also says if you sow to the flesh, then you're going to reap the moral corruption that comes from sowing to the flesh. Then he drops this warning on us. He says, "Don't be deceived. Don't be led astray."

It's easy to be deceived. You know why it's easy to be deceived? Because we have pride. Pride lives on the inside, and pride deceives us. We don't need nobody. We think we're the macaroni. We think we're the last chip in the bag. We think we're it. You can't tell us, you can't convince us that we ain't it. The old people used to say, "You're not better than nobody, but ain't nobody better than you either." Some of us took that literally to mean that we're it. Because we are in this flesh, we have the mechanism inside to deceive ourselves.

Let me talk about it. We deceive ourselves because we come to church, and we fool ourselves or deceive or lead ourselves astray thinking that just because we're sitting in here means we're a Christian. But you can be parked in a garage; that won't make you a car. Sitting in a building is not going to make you a Christian. You can deceive yourself. Come here James, the writer. James said, "Prove the word. Be not just hearers of the word, but be doers of the word." If you don't do the word, you are deceiving yourself.

So you can deceive yourself by being here and thinking that you are all right. The biggest challenge for us as Christians is because we know that it's by grace that we are saved, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. Because we know that God is merciful and is a savior, and because we have received the grace of God, we think we can still live any kind of way. We think we can talk to people any kind of way, treat people any kind of way, and then hide behind the grace of God. You are deceiving yourself.

You have to be careful. Sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking that we can identify who's a Christian. The book of first Corinthians lays out some things like you know that no whoremongers and no adulterers and no homosexuals and all those kinds of things will enter into the kingdom. So we sit in our seats of judgment, and we start trying to decide who can be saved and who can't. All we are doing is deceiving ourselves. There are going to be some judgment surprises. There are going to be some people in heaven that you didn't think were going to be there. There's going to be some Holy Ghost hand-waving, scripture-toting, Bible-quoting people busting hell wide open.

They have stood in judgment of other people. Don't think I don't know what I'm talking about. Jesus told about a Pharisee and a sinner who went to the temple to pray. The sinner went to the temple and he smote his breast. He said, "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner." The Pharisee came in and said, "Lord, I just thank You that I'm not like this sinner." He started listing all of the wonderful things that he did. "I come to worship, I give my tithes, I do all of these things." Jesus said the sinner went home justified as opposed to the Pharisee.

A whole lot of people who think that their self-righteous manifestation gives them the right to determine who God will save. God can save anybody. There are going to be people that you don't know, people quietly smiting their breasts, "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner," because they know that they haven't been deceived. But there are other folks who think that they don't have any sin because they don't do what somebody else does or do it like somebody else. But if you don't think you've got no sin, then you make the Bible a liar, and that means you're deceiving yourself.

Not only can we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are all right and we can choose and decide who can be saved and who is saved, but we can deceive ourselves even by other people. We can be deceived by false teachers. People can sound good, and we ain't going to read it ourselves. The old story is, if you want to hide something from black people, put it in a book. Put it in writing, because we ain't going to read it. But if somebody sounds like it, that's what has killed us all these years because somebody sounds good. They spent twenty minutes saying nothing, and you're having to pull people out from under the bench. They've fallen out, deceiving themselves and being deceived by false teachers.

I recognize that there was a generation on the other side of slavery where people were not able to read or write, and it was against the law for people to read. So the old black preacher may have had to use his manner like that. "I imagine the Lord said," and he had a great imagination. He used that. But nowadays, y'all, come on. Don't be deceived. Don't let people fool you. I was afraid for us because I know that we would have been vulnerable as a church that somebody comes in with the right sound, and you haven't looked at nothing else. So don't be deceived.

Saul did it. He sure did, deceived himself and then lied. God told him, "Go take down Amalek and destroy him. Don't save nobody." But they brought the best of the sheep back. Samuel came around, and Saul came out there with a big chest out, grinning, "I've done the Lord's work." Samuel said, "Shut up. What's the meaning of these bleating sheep?" Then he looked and said, "The people did that. The Lord wanted these sheep for sacrifices." He said, "No, obedience is better than sacrifice." Sometimes we substitute the portions of what we want to do as opposed to what God has said to do. In that process, we deceive ourselves.

Then not only do we have deceptive mechanisms within, but sometimes you can be deceived by friends. Even people who hang with you because the group dynamic changes the way you view things. When you're by yourself, you're one way. But when you get with your friends, it becomes a different dynamic. That's what parents miss. Sometimes I've seen parents who deceive themselves because "my child at home is like this; they don't act like this at home." Well, nobody else is there. But when they get in that room with ten other boys or ten other girls, their personalities are changed by an influence by who they're with. Sometimes people can mess you up on the playground. Group dynamics can mess people up. So be careful.

The warning is: be not deceived. God is not mocked. You're not going to fool Him. God knows your uprising, and God knows your down-sitting. God knows your thoughts are far off. There is not a word in your mouth that God doesn't know. Listen at what David said: "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, You are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." There is nowhere you can go that you can escape from God. God knows. So be not deceived. You're not going to fool Him.

What he goes on to say in this passage is there's a thing that's called "due season." That's good and bad news. This is the principle of sowing and reaping because what you sow is what's going to come up. It's going to come up in due season. There's a law. If you plant peas, don't go out there looking for okra, because that's not what you're going to find. You're going to find if you planted peas, then what's coming up? Peas. If you sow to the flesh corruption, guess what's coming? There's going to be a payday coming, and that payday may not be what you think it's going to be, but it's going to be whatever it is that you have sown.

That's the whole agricultural principle. People who plant and people who farm and people who garden, they know this principle. They know it's the truth, that what you plant in that ground is what is going to come up. I don't care who don't like it; it's going to be what it's going to be. There's also a financial principle, and that's why we talk when we talk about offering, that if you sow a few seeds, then guess what you're going to get in the harvest in due season? You're going to get a few things that came up. If you plant a lot of financial seeds, in due season, guess what you're going to have? You're going to have an abundant harvest of good things.

All right, here we are still early in the new year. I'm trying to help get inside of you as you think about how to make this be a prosperous year. You have got to be careful. Don't you deceive yourself. You've got to make sure you are practicing good and godly behaviors because as you sow good and godly behaviors, good deeds, right things, right thinking, right understanding, then you on whenever day that is that God chooses for the season of reward and harvest to come, you can expect something good to happen.

That's a blessing. But if you think like somebody else that you can do people wrong and take away their stuff, whether it be their land, whether it be their oil, whether it be their ships, whether it be their citizenship, whether it be their loans, whether it be their bank accounts, no matter what it is, if you think you can just take it from folk and continue to put people down and dog them out and call them all kinds of names because you don't like what they're saying, you have deceived yourself because there is going to come a day. I might not see it, you might not see it, but this irrefutable, undeniable, unchangeable law is going to be there: that what that man sows is going to happen.

But the deal is now, it's not just him. Hello. It's you. It's me. It's all of us. So we need to be on the understanding that if something needs to change inside of us, we'd better change it. You may be big, you may be bad, you may be mighty, you may be all of that, and you might can take advantage of people and you might have the loudest voice and the strongest voice and all that, but be careful because what you sow, you're going to reap.

What I love about it is due season is coming. Fall is one season, winter is another season, spring is another season, and summer is another season. For some of us, that's all we know. But thank be to God, there's another season, and it's called due season. I don't know how it makes you feel, but I'm waiting on due season. That's the season that God has set apart to open the windows of heaven and to pour out a blessing that I don't have room enough to receive because of seeds that have already been planted in the ground.

Listen, I like that old song, "I Got a Seed in the Ground." Anybody got a seed in the ground? You've got to have a seed in the ground to look forward to due season because God's going to bring it. It might not come when I want it to. It might not come when you want it to, but it's coming because God has promised. So he says this: "Let us not be weary." Don't get tired of doing right. Let's not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.

So let me encourage you this morning. Let me encourage somebody who may not have been able to do it by yourself, may not have felt like you were getting where you want to go. Be encouraged. Hang in there. Keep doing what you're doing. Keep doing right. Keep loving people in spite of them. Keep praying. Keep giving. Keep singing. Keep praying. Keep talking. Keep loving. Keep going. Keep blessing people. Keep helping people. Sometimes I get the greatest blessing not by the amount, but by where it comes from.

I realize that people don't have to do anything for me, but there are some people right among us that every now and then they just say, "I want to sow a seed." Well, I want you to know your due season is coming, that God doesn't miss. God doesn't miss all of the kind acts that nobody else sees. God doesn't miss when you wipe the face of somebody or give a cup of cold water to somebody who needs water. Those of you who are caregivers, I want you to know, due season is coming.

Yeah, you up at night and everybody else is sleep, but you're trying to take care of a loved one. Nobody else even wants to help you, but you're doing it all by yourself. That's all right, keep going. Due season coming. I want those to know who support maybe children or somebody else's children or somebody else's circumstance, and you might not be able to talk about it, might not even be able to tell it, others might not even know what you do, but due season is coming for you.

I love the Lord. He's a just God. He's a merciful God. He's a mighty God. He's going to bring it to pass. So don't be weary. Don't get tired of doing what's right because due season is coming. If due season is coming, that means there's a day of reward. Anybody want a day of reward? Yeah. January is the new year, starts the new year, so this is planting time. Somewhere between now and December, due season is going to show up. It might happen this month. It might happen next month, but due season is coming.

Is there anybody here this morning who looks forward to your due season? You've got to expect it. Now, what you can't do—a farmer knows this—you can't go out there and look under the ground every day. "What you doing down there? I don't see nothing. Let me pull you up and see how you're coming." No, it's a trust thing where you trust God to do what only God does invisibly when it's out of sight, but it doesn't mean it's not happening. It's happening.

So listen, he says let us therefore, as opportunity presents itself, and you've got opportunity to do good unto all men, especially those of the household of faith. This is the other principle: when you bless somebody, you don't have to worry about how you're going to make it, because God got somebody else who's going to bless you. It's an ongoing cycle. God uses your hand as a channel, and you bless somebody else. By the time you get it out of your hand good, God got somebody else putting it back in your hand. The chain keeps going. If they pass it on and they pass it on to somebody else and they pass it on to somebody else, then the chain starts all the way back over here at the door. God starts blessing people, and they pass it, and they pass it, and they pass it, and they pass it, and then they just look around because God's going to keep on doing it.

How many know God will do it? Do you think the parable of the fish and loaves was just a parable? Do you think it was just a miracle that was limited to the hillside that day? God knows how to take your little bit and turn it into a multitude of stuff that will bless a whole lot of folk. But keep doing it. Keep doing good, especially to people who are of the house of faith. Don't miss your moment. Don't miss the opportunity. Take what God has given you and be of good cheer, my brother. Be a good sister.

Now, I didn't stay on the negative side, but I do want to warn you because just as these truths are on the positive side, there's also the negative side. If you take these opportunities to cuss people out and to dog people and to put your foot on folk's neck, then you'd better know that there's another day coming. It's still called due season, and in that season, you're going to reap what you have sown. God knows how to keep us balanced, doesn't He? He knows how to keep us in order. I want to stay in the order that God wants me to be in. I want to be under control in the way God wants me to be under control. I want to do the good that I can to all the people I can, as long as ever I can, as a man of God.

I think if we have that mindset going forward and practicing the Christian life, that's what Paul is speaking of, practice the Christian life. Don't talk it; practice. Live it. Do it. Be it. When you be it, then the world will know it. God will get the glory, and the day of reward will come. That day of reward, I ain't talking about when you get to heaven. I'm talking about due season happens now in this life. There's some things God's going to bless you with in this life.

Jesus said it like this: "No man who has left father, mother, houses, or land for my sake and for the Gospel, who shall not in this life receive a hundredfold, and then in the life to come, eternal life." So it's both and. It's not either or. It's not just the by and by, the pie in the sky. Some of that stuff you're going to get now. Hello somebody. Hell is hot, but hell ain't the only thing that people are going to receive either for their wrongdoing. If they sow to the corruption, that's why you've got all of these diseases. I don't want to talk like that. I don't want to say these kinds of things, but I just need to say it because somebody don't think I know what I'm saying, and I know clearly what I'm saying.

You can sow to your flesh corruption, and you know, you can go out there and you can jump around here and jump around there, but that won't stop you from getting something that you don't want. Because that's the principle. You sow to the flesh corruption, then what happens? You're going to reap the corruption in the flesh. But the good news is that I never could have made it. Anybody know you couldn't have made it this far without the Lord on your side? We won't be able to finish this course without the Lord, without the Lord blessing, without the seasons coming and going. There's going to be seedtime and there's going to be harvest time as long as you live. There's going to be opportunities to plant and there's going to be a day of reaping what you have planted.

That's the way God has designed it. It is an irrefutable, unchangeable, undeniable law. Here it is. I never could have, would have made it without the Lord on my side. I'm here today to tell you I'm stronger, I'm wiser, I'm better. I'm all of those things because of the Lord's goodness and mercy in my life. The doors open. Somebody might be here this morning. Somebody might need to know that this can be your opportunity to change. This can be your opportunity to start the year with a new season. This can be your opportunity to start planting because due season is coming. You can make it. Just don't deceive yourself.

I would have lost it all. I would have lost my mind. How many know that's true? How many know that we just would not have been able to do what God has brought us through without His help? I know what David meant now when he said, "I was young, and now I'm old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." That gives me shout every time I think about it because I've got grandchildren now, and I know that my children didn't have to beg, and I know they won't either.

That blesses me. I used to hear my mama say that when I was a little boy. Didn't fully understand it, but I understand it now. Oh yes. I want you to go in peace today. Want you to go to the study time that follows, to the class of your choice. Continue to study the Word of God, grow in it, become the Christian people that God wants you to be. Sowing to the Spirit and reap the harvest of a strong spirit life. You sow to the flesh corruption, then corruption is what you're going to reap. Do what you need to do. Sow your financial seeds, grow, be prosperous, be blessed. Do good deeds, kind things, right things to people, not because you look for them to do it back to you, but God will get somebody else. He'll raise up that will come along and bless you. Be the people of God that God wants you to be.

Guest (Male): Hope you enjoyed the broadcast. You have been listening to a message from the Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, where we are reaching the world for Christ. Located at 2135 Jefferson Avenue Southwest, Birmingham, Alabama, 35211. For a copy of this message, you can reach us at 205-925-9750 or 925-9751, or visit us on the web at www.greatershiloh.org. For another uplifting message, we invite you to join us for our next broadcast.